Men And Office Work

Why Men Aren't Built For Office Work

There’s nothing like spending a weekend with cattle ranchers and meat packers to make you feel like less of a man. I was in Ohio for the grand opening of Certified Angus Beef’s Educational and Culinary Center, and while a full write-up of my experience is on the docket for later, suffice to say for now that hanging out with men who work with the land and their bare hands on a daily basis certainly puts an office job in perspective. In many instances, I think you could make a strong case that men just aren’t cut out to work in offices at all.

As offices become more automated and business processes continue to improve, the modern man is increasingly at a disadvantage in the business world. To say that a different way, I think we’re fine as workers, but there’s really nothing that goes on in a modern-day office that allows us to have or assert any kind of competitive advantage, either over our fellow men or our female counterparts. Like it or not, the things that we’ve evolved to specialize in as men simply don’t carry a lot of clout in accounts receivable. Women, on the other hand, have skills better suited to it.

For starters, look at an employer’s options when it comes to bringing on a new employee. In terms of education, women make up more than half of all current college enrollments. If you look beyond undergrad and into graduate programs, the gap widens. Women hold more than 60% of graduate degrees among people aged 25-29. At nearly every level, men are coming to the table with less education than our female counterparts.

The real kicker? Even if we're just as qualified as a female candidate, our competitive nature and negotiating prowess might price us out of the job anyway. As it turns out, a big factor in the male-female wage gap is that women simply don’t negotiate their salaries early in their careers, resulting in a lower starting salary than some men may have lobbied for. Sure, that’s good news for you when an offer’s on the table, but what if you’re a hiring manager evaluating candidates? If budgets are tight and they’re evenly matched, you’re always going to make an offer to the candidate you think you can get for a lower price.